


We are in Winter

by inujuju



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Getting Back Together, Guilt, Hand Jobs, Hypothermia, M/M, Minor Body Horror, Self-Hatred, parasitic plant inside Claude
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:20:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24815989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inujuju/pseuds/inujuju
Summary: Dimitri doesn't know if he hates Claude, or loves him. All he knows is that he refuses for him to die. Claude hates himself but still clings to Dimitri for love. He doesn't want to wake up but he doesn't want to sleep. In a world that has no love or hate for them, they keep each other alive. That's all they can do for now.---Written for Marlon's post-apocalypse AU.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 3
Kudos: 35





	We are in Winter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Marlemarle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marlemarle/gifts).



> For Marlon, who has done a great job building a very eerie Fodlan. Check out their awesome art @rawmettwurst on Twitter (NSFW)!

It doesn't take long for Dimitri to find shelter in the frost bitten woods. The sun is still high, and Claude's clothes are still heavy with water rather than ice. The promise of warmth should bring Dimitri the relief he craves, but his worry is spiked to high. Claude's ramblings are growing quieter, his breathing more pained, and his lips turning pale like ice.

A small part of Dimitri still feels rage, and right now it wrestles between targets. At Claude, for being so foolishly distracted by his thoughts. At the serpent, for knocking Claude into the frigid waters covered in thick ice. At himself, for not being better prepared, for not being able to get to Claude sooner. The rage cannot overtake his worry though. Not at the realization that Claude is still lost to memories a hundred years past. That Dimitri has yet to offer enough kind words to his partner to pull him away from schemes long gone.

This softer part of Dimitri, coming to light with time and silence, focuses on the now, rather than the distant past and uncertain future. Claude's breath pushes Dimitri's steps. Green eyes flicker down their storming path. Dimitri listens to a new Almyran tale Claude's been telling for the past hour.

Approaching the stable shack, Dimitri is careful with the door. It would do no good for him to crash into the house and let more cold into the building. Inside lies a warm hearth, embers still glowing red. Pelts hang throughout the entrance room, accompanied with drying fruits and what looks like a herb collection. The house is not deserted, as a part of Dimitri had hoped, but he cannot risk giving up this safe haven. If there's one thing he has learned in this new world, it's that strangers must rely on one another. People are so misplaced and so easily torn apart by the horrors now ruling the world, they have little choice but to accept any help they can get. Perhaps the house owner will be willing to work with them. In exchange for time to recover, Dimitri can partake in chores. When Claude awakens well, his calloused hands would be a welcome addition to the mortar and pestle.

Regardless, Dimitri does not want to intrude on the stranger until Claude is more stable. The area in front of the hearth is bare except for a large blanket made out of hay. Dimitri sets Claude down beside it, moving quickly to remove the other of his drenched clothes. He takes his knife to the sleeves, unwilling to risk moving Claude's arms with the welts that may be forming. Once Claude is bare, Dimitri adjusts his fur cloak on the ground over the mat. Perhaps it is silly, but Dimitri wants to offer Claude whatever comfort he can.

"Dima...?" Claude says, voice strained and raw. Dimitri doesn't answer, not with words. Instead he moves Claude onto his cloak, brushing frozen hair away from his face. Claude's eyes drift, trying to take in their surroundings. Dimitri allows the other to explore the delirium he is in, choosing instead to remember the various lessons he learned of surviving in Faerghus' frigid winters. Lessons that kept him alive back during the war. Lessons that may keep Claude alive now.

There is a collection of blankets near the fireplace, so Dimitri begins layering them on top of Claude, taking a pause whenever the others tongue slows, whenever his chest stops moving. Only two blankets in and Claude begins to groan, to worm under the weight and gasp.

"Claude stop." Dimitri instructs, but the other whines in what sounds like pain.

"My side, my side-" he gasps and Dimitri slowly removes the blankets to inspect Claude.

The twisting plant that made home out of Claude's flesh slowly straightens, relaxing the sharp pull on Claude's skin, and most likely his organs. Dimitri hates that he so often forgets the surest proof of their slumber. His own armor, even rusted, protected him from such invasions. Claude meanwhile only had bandages soaked in his own blood to deter them. If anything, it encouraged plants to fester, and now their roots have twisted deep inside Claude's body, filling the space of the air he so desperately needs.

Without his crest, Claude would be dead, eaten alive by the plants he thought not to protect himself against. But the cursed magic wove his flesh back together, sewing the plants in place as if they were just another part of him. Claude had brushed it off, had skillfully hidden the new additions and refused to talk on them. Yet now, with leaves unfurling and a steam stealing his blood, it is no longer something Dimitri can allow himself to ignore.

"Does that feel better?" Dimitri asks as he moves Claude onto his side. The warrior’s large palms hold the other's face, trying to understand the pulls of lips and tears.

Claude blinks up at him, eyes watering from the pain. "D-Dima?" Dimitri nods. "W-whats-?" Claude is cut off by a coughing fit, shaking his cold body.

Dimitri moves to bundling the blankets behind Claude. He cannot cover him completely with the plant in the way, not without risking the other more pain that could aggravate his lungs. Still, between the fire and the blankets, Dimitri worries it is not enough. Claude is clearly exhausted, and Dimitri has no access to warm drinks to try and feed him with. To try and bring warmth to the others cold chest.

Perhaps he can explore the house, find more blankets to cover Claude with. Before he can leave though, a weak hand slides against his knee.

"Mmm sorry, Dima." Claude says, tongue heavy and eyes shut. "Mmm sorry. This is all" a cough "my fault. Again."

Something twists inside Dimitri. "Stop that." He tells the other, laying his own hand over Claude's. "Stop trying to blame yourself, Claude. This isn't-"

"If I had just-" Claude's eyes flutter open, stuck on the floor rather than rising to meet Dimitri's. "Been stronger, less of a coward, we could, this all could-"

"Claude," Dimitri interrupts, grabbing the others chin so he can glare down at him. "I don't not care for such frivolous lines of thinking. You are freezing to death and my only care right now is saving you."

Claude's lips fall open, his eyes grow wide. He looks shocked, in ways that Dimitri isn't sure he's ever really seen. Then the other is laughing, lips pulling wide as he reaches a hand up to the other.

"I feel safe... as long as you're with me." Claude whispers before his hand drops, his chest shutters and his eyes slip close. He tries to breathe deep, but the plant constricts his lungs too tightly and he's left weeping through the pain.

Dimitri needs to leave to get Claude more blankets. Staying will do nothing for them. Yet the words the other has spoken are like chains tying Dimitri there. Dimitri has to think, has to find a way to warm Claude with only his body.

The solution registers with a flirtatious memory filled with laughter. He remembers his friends, long gone, joking of sharing body heat. How Sylvain has flirted so openly with Ingrid, how she in turn kicked him in the shins. Dimitri's ears burn red, of all things, at the memory, at the happiness, at the suggestion it brings. Dimitri glances around the room, suddenly overwhelmed with a self-conscious desire to ensure no one else is there.

Despite his own thoughts, Dimitri cannot argue that body heat is something that Claude would benefit from. He takes off his own clothes, arranging them to still cover the side of his body while he presses himself close to Claude. The other grunts, but doesn't pull away, allowing Dimitri to arrange them as he desires. Once he settles down, he expects Claude to nuzzle closer, something he had done so long ago, in another life. Yet the other stays still and Dimitri doesn't know if he should expect anything less.

"Do you regret this?" Dimitri asks as he pulls Claude closer, as he curls the blankets along their waists and sets his arm next to the plant stretching outside of Claude.

Claude laughs, eyelashes flickering apart as he opens his eyes. "I regret" he begins "a lot of things. But being beside you, Dimitri, isn't one of them."

Dimitri doesn't know what to say to that, so he doesn't say anything. He tucks Claude close, breathing in the smell of water, ice and snow. Too late, does Dimitri realize that he's searching for the smell of cloves and oil. For the smell that Claude wore back at the academy. But with over a hundred years between then and now, Dimitri no longer knows what Claude smells like.  
  


* * *

  
Claude wakes up to skin painful and tender. It buzzes with the rawness of a bruise, rather than the warmth of his blood. His eyes ache under thawing lashes and his toes crack from welts. For someone who has survived as long as he has there is something hilarious about being rendered useless by nothing more than cold air and colder water.

He doesn't want to wake up. Not to the pain scratching in his throat, not to the body tucking him close, not to the reality that he has to face and, as always, has to break. But the darkness of his eyelids is scarier than fraying sight. The stillness of the air is more ominous then the burn of drowning lungs. The idea of sleep is far worse than the idea of dying.

So Claude gasps awake, eyes ripping open like scabs and mouth peeling a bloody cry. Dimitri's hold on him tightens, and Claude feels his skin crack and hiss at the other's grip.

"Claude." Dimitri says, stoic, firm, absolute. Claude stops moving. Meets a blue eye that is colder than the frozen lake outside.

Dimitri sits up, pulling away. Claude wants to stop him, but it isn’t the right thing to do.

"Are you alright?" Dimitri asks, and his eyebrow sharpens his eye but softens the colour. Claude feels like he's looking up at the sky for the first time in years.

He isn’t sure if he likes it.

"Why?" Claude mumbles, grasping for something to say. For something to distract him.

"I need to know if I can move you." Dimitri answers.

"No," Claude shakes his head. "Why did you... why did you save me?" Claude's eyes fall to the floor. "Why... am I still alive?" The festering ache of hatred, doubt, guilt, and more stretches inside of Claude, turning the fading numbness into a crawling itch.

"Claude-" Dimitri starts, but Claude doesn't let him finish.

"I'm the reason we're here." He chokes out, left hand scratching against the wood beneath him, right hand clawing at the plant inside him. "I'm the reason this, all of this, happened. The monsters, the weather, everything! If I had just gotten you to a healer you could have kept fighting, you could have stopped all of this."

Claude's eyes squeeze shut, fracturing the darkness of his mind into nauseating stars. "I was selfish. I didn't want to die. I didn't want to leave you. And now, everything I ever wanted to do, everything I fought so hard to achieve, it's so far away." His head shakes, his cheek pulls against Dimitri's cloak. "I can't reach it anymore. I can't reach you anymore."

There is no reply as Claude cries, as his blistered body seeks comfort by pulling itself close, only to receive pain.

When silence returns, when Claude's energy wanes, Dimitri speaks.

"Perhaps you are right, and all of this is your fault." He starts. Claude doesn't dare open his eyes. "When we awoke, I hated you. When we learned what transpired, I blamed you. When you fell beneath the water, I should have left you."

It hurts to hear the truth.

A warm hand, twice the size of Claude's, rests against his head. "And yet I saved you. I carried you here and prioritized your survival over my comfort." Dimitri continues. Claude whimpers soft, bites his lips and squeezes his eyes tight.

"I may have hated you Claude. I may have blamed you. But I think I am also coming to forgive you." Dimitri's hand moves to Claude's bleeding mess of fingers and splinters. "Things have changed, we cannot deny that. Our dreams have no chance of fruition in this hell." Cool cotton presses between Claude's fingers, spreading them out. "But just because we lost one dream, does not mean we cannot chase another."

Lips, chapped but warm, press against Claude's knuckles. He opens his eyes to Dimitri looking down at him.

"When you fell beneath the ice, when I realized you could die, I made a choice. I'm not going to let you disappear without me. Everyone we know is dead, everything we knew is gone. But that doesn't mean we don't exist anymore, Claude. That doesn't mean we can't still do something."

Dimitri grabs Claude's face, presses down upon him like a beast. "You brought me with you to this nightmare. I won't let you leave it without me." 

Dimitri's lips press hot and hard against Claude's, still but insistent with their presence.

"I'm going to keep you alive, Claude." Dimitri says, and Claude feels heat temper into warmth, pain ease into healing. Dimitri's eye sparkles, his lip twists, his hair drapes between them. "So come on, Claude, why don't we live a little?"

The laughter that escapes Claude is like the returning echo to a hundred years ago. Back then, it was Claude who had Dimitri pinned. It was Claude who was filled with unwavering certainty. It was Dimitri who was lost to emotional turmoil.

"Of all the things you could say," Claude gasps out, stiff hands coming up to frame Dimitri's face. "That was my best line."

Dimitri grins and when he presses back against Claude they feel young again. No wars lie in their future, no destruction in their pasts. It's just two foolish people, falling into the cusp of adulthood all over again.

They roll to the side, Claude on his back and Dimitri holding him down, keeping him present in the moment. The plant inside Claude sways against the blankets, resting as breaths turn into fluttering gasps. Into shaking moans.

So much has happened since they last touched one another, so many changes becoming more apparent. Claude's aching fingers are lost against the scars on Dimitri's back. Dimitri's lips sweep across Claude’s curling stubble.

"C-Can I?" Claude asks, because he wants to. He wants to feel Dimitri against him more, to burn this feeling into his healing skin.

Dimitri gasps at Claude’s words. They’re both growing hard, their breathes growing strained. They slot their legs between each other like a dance they could never forget.

"Please-" Dimitri whines, pressing his face into Claude's shoulder. "Claude!"

Claude sobs against him, his hips rising with need. His right hand slides between them. His fingers trip over Dimitri's size, moving off of instinct rather than thought. Claude holds him, trying to control his strength while Dimitri moans against his throat. Dimitri’s lips suck nicer bruises along Claude's throat. The pain is exhilarating, far sharper than the coldness of the water. Claude's hips buck on their own, desperate for more pleasure to overwhelm him.

Groaning at the act, Dimitri shifts. His left hand comes down to join Claude's. His grip is larger, holding their cocks together with the aid of Claude's hand. There's something so stupidly endearing about it that Claude feels tears prick against his eyes. He loses himself as Dimitri's thrusts against him, as their voices cry out for one another.

Dimitri's heated breath leaves Claude's neck, slamming against his lips. Claude's mouth opens for him, just as desperate. They sink into one another's bodies, chasing a high they can only reach with one another.

Cladue comes first, his stamina a distant star compared to Dimitri's burning sun. His whole body shakes as his lungs expand for breath. For once, Claude only tastes sweet air instead of blood. 

Dimitri lets Claude's body slump, moving his lips back to Claude's throat. He raises his hips away to give Claude more room to be as he strokes himself.

Claude can only mutter senseless words of adoration as Dimitri shakes. He wishes, not for the first time, that Dimitri was inside him, free to use him until he reaches the peak that Claude leads him to.

"Claude-" Dimitri cries into the other's neck as he comes. His spend coats Claude's stomach, mixing with Claude's own, and Claude smiles at the thought.

Silence returns between them, the first one Claude could call comfortable since the war. It's... nice… pleasant. Something that Claude can hold onto once time starts moving without him again.


End file.
